Supergen Biomass and Bioenergy Consortium: theme 6 systems analysis

The Supergen Biomass and Bioenergy consortium aims to provide a recognized focus for UK biomass and bioenergy activities that unites key stakeholders and academia through leading edge research into renewable energy. The consortium studies production of different types of biomass, investigating their behaviour in thermal conversion processes designed to service demands across the heat, electricity, transport fuel and industrial demand sectors.

Tyndall Manchester leads the theme on systems analysis, which evaluates the performance, cost and socio-economic benefits of a wide range of bioenergy chains. These range from use of domestic energy crops for home heating through to imported biomass for large scale electricity supply and consideration of advanced biorefinery concepts.

For each system greenhouse gas balances, environmental life cycle impacts, techno-economic analyses and social assessments are carried out, which inform an overall assessment of sustainability and policy development options.

Analysis of which features of the actors, institutions, and policy-making processes involved in clean development are resulting in effective climate action and development benefits, which are not, and why.+

The torrefaction process involves heating biomass to a moderate temperature (~280 °C) in the absence of air. This results in a material containing typically 80% of the heating value of the original biomass, and is transformed into a harder, darker fuel, which is much easier to crush. +

The Radical Emissions Reduction Conference is taking place today Tuesday 10th Decemberand Wednesday 11th December . You can view a live video feed here. The feed will begina few minutes before the event.+